Half A Battlestar
by Chaos Eternus
Summary: One Shot: Galactica finds Earth. Trouble is, the aliens found it first...


**Half A Battlestar  
by chaos_eternus**

The day started normally enough, Cylons, a big battle, jumping to safety with no real change to the status quo. Then, it started to go off.

First, there was the unusually rough exit from the jump, as if something was interfering with, almost warping space in the area as they arrived. This was unusual and certainly got their few scientists excited but when he told it should have a minimal effect on their ability to jump out; Adama gave it little further thought.

That was perhaps his first mistake.

His second was allowing people to land on the semi-habitable world they found themselves orbiting. Okay, so the ecology was ruined, there was radioactive waste everywhere; they should still be able to obtain some useful supplies to replenish the fleet. Perhaps looted from the ruined cities

That was a turn-up for the books and certainly worth putting in the diary. The number of formally habited worlds they had come across in their exodus he could count without having to take his shoes off. Unlike Kobol which looked like it had once been inhabited by perhaps a billion (and for some reason, something about that world still bugged him.) this world looked as if it had once held a population equivalent to all twelve of the old colonies put together.

It was also far more carelessly arranged and showed signs even from orbit of long term occupation before whichever calamity struck and looked to have wiped the entire population out.

He authorised a landing then, and wasn't that surprised when word came back that it had been humans who had once inhabited the world. He was surprised however when the ground teams reported having found radios working radios. Radios that were picking up lots of communications, though mostly brief with much use of ciphers.

At which point, he had to go have a quiet, ahem, word' with the duty operations officer about actually checking the entire radio frequency when approaching any world, and not just those portions used by the Cylons and Colonials.

During that discussion', the first weird report arrived.

Gaius Baltar dead, Baltar killed by some freaky crab like creature that attempted to mate with his head.

Baltar, dead but still walking around and now trying to kill the rest of the ground team. Okay, Gaius Baltar trying to kill everyone, not that much of a surprise, he had had his suspicions about the man and his loyalties for quiet some time.

He just expected more subtlety then shuffling around groaning, trying to bludgeon everyone. He expected the foremost scientist of the former colonies not to be stopped by such simple things as doors.

Then the reports started to get worse. More of the crab things pouring out of the ground, followed by hordes of flying insects that simply _swarmed _ anyone stupid enough to set foot on sand. Unknown soldiers in full body suits shooting anyone and anything without any kind of provocation

Kara Thrace's entire team turned _zombie, _Lords, Kara herself stumbling around with a crab humping her head and still she able to get into a cockpit and outfly everyone else.

And then aliens.

Aliens.

Frakking _Aliens. _

It bore repeating given how many times in the past the Colonies had come across aliens, i.e. never.

_Aliens. _

Talking, walking well, more like fleeing' aliens. Ugly as sin, but with some strange ability to manipulate electromagnetic fields, even to the point of being able to shoot electricity _without _ needing a gun.

Freaky definitely alien.

But bonus points to Galen for having enough sense to order his people not to shoot, if it had been Kara's team that had come across them first, well, the phrase interspecies warfare comes to mind. Though, taking another looks at the planets surface that might already have happened.

Then the bomb dropped.

Earth.

This ruined hulk, slowly decaying into total ecological collapse was Earth. Not a free Earth either, an Earth under the control of a traitor in the pay of aliens from another dimension.

A man who, not 24 hours later looked to be dead, the main outpost of the invading aliens, this Citadel' destroyed after a strange electromagnetic storm that blew electrical relays across the fleet, all because a single man apparently came back form the dead.

Or from the missing, nobody seemed to be quite clear about that. Frankly, he would believe he had come back form the dead, judging by the Cylons, Gaius Baltar and most of Kara Thrace's ground team, coming back from the dead seemed to be catching nowadays. The only ones who didn't seem to be managing it were the Lords themselves but that could be only a matter of time

And then there was Baltar again, who beyond his fashion sense and a problem with doors, hadn't really changed at all had he

Still, he now had to meet the apparent leader, figurehead and action man of the Resistance the _Earth _resistance that was.

Should be interesting, apparently the man was willing to separated from everyone of his weapons for the meet and great bar one.

His crowbar.

The speech he had made over the radio about that had been a bit too impassioned, perhaps he should just label that under don't ask and don't tell' and try not to think about it again.

Still, for the sake of his people and Earth's, it was time to make nice with this last free man', this Anti-citizen One', this Gordon Freeman.

* * *

I do not own, nor do I claim ownership of characters and / or concepts from Battlestar Galactica and Half Life / Half Life 2.


End file.
